Applied biological sciences postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

Most mornings I start work by packing a cool box with sterile bottles and driving to a service reservoir or treatment works. For the past eighteen months I have been a sampling technician for a regional water company, collecting raw and treated water for the laboratory and recording temperature, chlorine residual and turbidity on site. The job is routine in the best sense: it depends on doing the same careful things every time. It has also made me curious about what happens to the biology in those samples once they leave my hands, and about how living systems can be put to practical use rather than simply monitored. That curiosity is why I am applying for postgraduate study in applied biological sciences.

My undergraduate degree in Biology gave me a broad base in microbiology, plant physiology, ecology and statistics. The module I enjoyed most dealt with environmental microbiology, because it treated microbes as working communities rather than isolated species. For my final-year project I asked whether common duckweed, Lemna minor, could grow in diluted liquid digestate from an anaerobic digester, and how much ammonium it removed. I set up thirty small tanks under grow lights at four dilutions, counted fronds every two days and measured ammonium with a colorimetric test kit. Growth was strong at the two weakest dilutions and collapsed at the strongest, which I attributed to ammonia toxicity, although I could not separate that from the effect of the digestate's colour on light reaching the plants. Designing the experiment so that I could analyse it properly in R, with replicate tanks rather than pseudo-replicated counts, taught me more about experimental design than any lecture. I received a first-class mark for the project, and it left me wanting to work on biological treatment processes at a larger and more rigorous scale.

Work has added a different kind of preparation. I follow written sampling procedures exactly, maintain chain-of-custody paperwork and calibrate field meters each week. When a turbidity meter began giving readings that drifted during the day, I logged the pattern over a fortnight and showed my supervisor that it tracked the temperature inside the van; the meter was replaced and the procedure now specifies keeping it in the cool box. It was a small fix, but it showed me how much good data depends on noticing the ordinary details. I have also seen how laboratory results feed decisions that operators must make quickly, which has made me think about applied science as something that has to be useful to people outside the lab.

Outside work, I volunteer at a community allotment where I help run a shared compost system. Trying to keep heaps hot enough without them turning anaerobic has been an informal lesson in microbial ecology, and explaining to new plot holders why they should not add cooked food has improved how I communicate science plainly. I also collect my thirteen-year-old brother from school three days a week while our mother works late, so I have become well practised at planning my time, which helped me complete an online course in introductory bioinformatics last winter. Badminton twice a week keeps me sane.

At postgraduate level I would like to develop laboratory skills I have only touched on, particularly molecular methods for characterising microbial communities, alongside stronger quantitative analysis. I am especially interested in bioremediation and in how plant and microbial systems can recover nutrients from waste streams. I am realistic that I have much to learn, but I bring a careful working habit, an undergraduate project I designed and analysed independently, and day-to-day experience of how biological data is collected and used in a regulated setting. I would welcome the chance to build on that foundation.